Much work still for Kings

FRUSTRATED Southern Kings head coach Deon Davids has warned his team they will battle to make proper headway in Super Rugby unless they develop the ability to dominate the collision line more effectively.

He has also made a passionate plea to his young team to step up to the demands of Super Rugby and warned that long hours lay ahead on the training field to improve skills.

Davids was speaking after his team slumped to their sixth loss in seven games with a 45-10 defeat by the Lions at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium on Saturday.

The marauding Lions outfit crossed for seven tries and Davids was once again left to lament soft moments just before and after half time as the visitors snuffed out any hopes the Kings had of pulling off an upset.

The two tries scored for the Kings came from Luzuko Vulindlu and Chris Cloete and that gave the home crowd of 6 117 something to cheer about.

After the Lions raced into a 38-5 lead after 56 minutes the Kings were forced to play catchup rugby against the log leaders in African Conference 2.

So far the Kings have leaked 43 tries and they will need to plug the holes in their defensive systems if they are to add to their single victory, over the Sunwolves.

The Kings travel to Argentina

Bto face the Jaguares in Buenos Aires at the Estadio Jose Amalfitani this week and Davids and his coaching staff do not have much time to pick the side up for what will be a testing clash.

“I felt we did not dominate the collision line. If you don’t have the ability to tackle a guy back or get him off the ground against a team like the Lions they will offload from there,” Davids said.

“Then they will make metres and put you on the back foot and use the width of the field to attack from.

“We need to develop that ability to dominate the collision, whether it is carrying the ball or tackling the opposition to give ourselves go-forward ball.”

Davids said long training hours lay ahead of his young team.

“You need to look at three things. Your system, skills and . . . effort,” Davids said.

“So we will analyse those three areas, and you have to look at your personnel eventually.

“We are quite positive in the way we back our players and give them the chance to grow and develop and work in [weak] areas.

“. . . as a team we need to learn to bounce back and move on.

“As an individual, if you have a setback you need to develop the mental ability to put yourself in a better position to perform.”

But Davids said he had taken some positives from the game.

“I think we started off well and were competitive and we had our plans and everything worked out for us in terms of what we wanted to do. One of the tries we got was about how we wanted to look for space and executing it.”

“. . . we were quite competitive against a good pack and we took our lineout balls.”